Discord flares as Living Cities gets Biloxi

The Knight Foundation has chosen the investment collaborative organization Living Cities to help guide redevelopment in the eastern section of Biloxi, Mississippi, where the homes of many low-income and minority families were destroyed or badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina. A Knight grant of $250,000 for the planning effort is to be matched by $125,000 from the Mississippi Development Authority and by other contributions from businesses. “The fundamental goal of our office and Living Cities is to produce a foundation for what I think would be a new urbanist approach,” said David Dixon, head of urban design for Goody, Clancy Associates of Boston, lead consultant in a planning team put together by Living Cities. Dixon described the objective as “a vision and a strategy for rebuilding East Biloxi,” and told New Urban News on May 12 that Mayor A.J. Holloway wants it completed “in 75 days.” grant stirs skepticism The Knight grant stirred deep skepticism among some who participated in last October’s Mississippi Renewal Forum. “Biloxi is not interested in the New Urbanism, because its political leadership is not committed to rebuilding its working class neighborhoods or contradicting the casinos in any way,” Stefanos Polyzoides, who resigned in March from consulting work in Biloxi, said in a May 12 message to the Mississippi Rebuilding listserv. Dixon attributed the break between Biloxi and Moule & Polyzoides of Pasadena, California, to the Californians’ desire to work with Biloxi in a charrette format, whereas the city’s officials wanted a planning process that would extend over more weeks and give officials more opportunities for “working with their constituencies” to shape the outcome. “None of this is a rejection of the spirit and tremendous sense of hope that the new urbanist charrette inspired, or of Moule & Polyzoides, who in fact are well regarded in Biloxi,” said Dixon. Polyzoides, however, reiterated the charges in the firm’s March 23 resignation letter, which said, among other things, that Biloxi officials’ decisions — “accepting the FEMA maps/guidelines, allowing casino operators to drive infrastructure and design decisions, promoting unchecked real estate speculation and up-zoning — are all incompatible with a community-based design approach.”